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Chapter 16:
Possession taken of
Michigan and the country on the
Lakes.—Pitts administration continued.
1760.
had
Amherst been more active, the preceding
campaign would have reduced
Canada.
His delay and retreat to
Crown Point gave
De Levi,
Montcalm's successor, a last opportunity of concentrating the remaining forces of
France at
Jacques Cartier for the recovery of
Quebec.
In that city
Saunders had left abundant stores and heavy artillery, with a garrison of seven thousand men, under the command of the brave but shallow
Murray.
When
De Levi found it impossible to surprise the place in mid-winter, he still resolved on undertaking its reduction.
George Townshend, now in
England, publicly rejected the opinion, ‘that it was able to hold out a considerable siege;’ and
Murray, the commander, himself prepared for ‘the last extremity,’ by selecting the
Isle of Orleans for his refuge.
As soon as the river opened,
De Levi proceeded with an army of less than ten thousand
1men to besiege
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Quebec.
On the twenty-eighth of April, the
vainglorious governor, marching out from the city, left the advantageous ground which he first occupied, and incautiously hazarded an attack near Sillery Wood.
The advance-guard, under De Bourlamarque, met the shock with firmness, and returned the attack with ardor.
In danger of being surrounded,
Murray was obliged to fly, leaving ‘his very fine train of artillery,’ and losing a thousand men. The
French appear to have lost about three hundred,
2 though
Murray's report increased it more than eight-fold.
During the two next days,
De Levi opened trenches against the town; but the frost delayed the works.
The English garrison, reduced by death during the winter, sickness, and the unfortunate battle, to twenty-two hundred effective men, exerted themselves with alacrity.
The women, and even the cripples, were set to light work.
In the
French army not a word would be listened to of the possibility of failure.
But
Pitt's sagacity had foreseen and prepared for all. A fleet at his bidding was on its way to relieve the city; and to his wife, the sister of Lord Temple and
George Grenville, he was able to write in June,—‘Join, my love, with me, in most humble and grateful thanks to the Almighty.
The siege of
Quebec was raised on the seventeenth of May, with every happy circumstance.
The enemy left their camp standing, abandoned forty pieces of cannon.
Swanton arrived there in the Vanguard on the fifteenth, and destroyed all the French shipping, six or seven in number.
Happy, happy day!
My joy and hurry are inexpressible.’
3
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Amherst had been notified of the intended siege;
but he persevered in the systematic and tardy plan which he had formed.
When the spring opened, he had no difficulties to encounter in taking possession of
Canada, but such as he himself should create.
A country suffering from a four years scarcity, a disheartened, starving peasantry, the feeble remains of five or six battalions, wasted by incredible services, and not recruited from
France, offered no opposition The party which was conducted from
Crown Point towards
Montreal, by
Colohel Haviland, found the fort on Isle-aux-Noix deserted.
Amherst himself led the main army of ten thousand men by way of
Oswego; it is not easy to say why; for the labor of getting there was greater than that of proceeding directly upon
Montreal.
After toiling to
Oswego, he descended the
St. Lawrence cautiously, taking possession of the feeble works at
Ogdensburg; treating the helpless
Canadians with humanity, and with no loss of lives except in passing the rapids, on the seventh of September he met before
Montreal the army under
Murray, who, as he came up from
Quebec, had intimidated the people-and amused himself by now and then burning a village and hanging a Canadian.
The next day,
Haviland arrived with forces from
Crown Point.
Thus the three armies came together in overwhelming strength to take an open town of a few hundred inhabitants, which
Vaudreuil had resolved to give up on the first appearance of the
English; and on the eighth day of September, the flag of
St. George floated in triumph on the gate of
Montreal, the admired island of
Jacques Cartier, the ancient hearth of the council-fires of the Wyandots, the village consecrated by the Roman Church to the
Virgin Mary, a
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site connected by rivers and lakes with an inland
world, and needing only a somewhat milder climate to be one of the most attractive spots on the continent.
The capitulation included all
Canada, which was said to extend to the crest of land dividing branches of
Erie and
Michigan from those of the
Miami, the
Wabash, and the
Illinois rivers.
Property and religion were cared for in the terms; but for civil liberty no stipulation was even thought of. Thus
Canada, under the forms of a despotic administration, came into the possession of
England by conquest; and in a conquered country the law was held to be the pleasure of the king.
On the fifth day after the capitulation,
Rogers departed with two hundred rangers to carry English banners to the upper posts.
4 At
Frontenac, now
Kingston, an Indian hunting-party brought them wild fowl and venison.
At
Niagara, they provided themselves with the fit costume of the wilderness.
From
Erie in the chilly days of November they went forward in boats, being the first considerable party of men whose tongue was the
English that ever spread sails on
Lake Erie or swept it with their oars.
The
Indians on the
Lakes were at peace, united under
Pontiac, the great chief of the Ottawas, happy in a country fruitful of corn and abounding in game.
As the
Americans advanced triumphantly towards the realms where the native huntsman had chased the deer through the unbroken woodlands, they were met at the mouth of a river
5 by a deputation of Ottawas
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from the west.
‘
Pontiac,’ said they, ‘is the chief
and lord of the country you are in; wait till he can see you with his own eyes.’
When
Pontiac and
Rogers met, the savage chieftain asked,—‘How have you dared to enter my country without my leave?’
‘I come,’ replied tile English agent, ‘with no design against the Indians, but to remove the
French out of your country;’ and he gave the wampum of peace.
But
Pontiac returned a belt, which arrested the march of the party, till his leave should be granted.
The next day, the chief sent presents of bags of parched corn, and, at a second meeting, smoked the calumet with the
American leader, inviting him to pass onward unmolested, with an escort of warriors, to assist in driving his herd of oxen along the shore.
To the tribes southeast of
Erie he sent word that the strangers came with his consent; yet while he studied to inform himself how wool could be changed into cloth, how iron could be extracted from the earth, how warriors could be disciplined like the
English, he spoke as an independent prince, who would not brook the presence of white men within his dominions but at his pleasure.
After this interview,
Rogers hastened to the straits which connect
Erie and
St. Clair, and took possession of
Detroit.
Thus was
Michigan won by
Great Britain, yet not for itself.
There were those
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who foresaw that the acquisition of
Canada was the
prelude of American independence.
England began hostilities for
Nova Scotia and the
Ohio.
These she had gained, and had added
Canada and Guadaloupe.
‘I will snatch at the first moment of peace,’ said
Pitt.
‘The desire of my heart,’ said George the Second to parliament, ‘is to see a stop put to the effusion of blood;’ and the public mind was discussing how far the conquests should be retained.
So great a subject of consideration had never before presented itself to British statesmen.
‘We have had bloodshed enough,’ urged
Pulteney,
Earl of
Bath, who, when in the House of Commons, had been cherished in
America as the friend of its liberties, and who now in his old age pleaded for the termination of a truly national war by a solid and reasonable peace.
‘Our North American conquests,’ said he to
Pitt and
Newcastle, and to the world, ‘cannot be retaken.
Give up none of them; or you lay the foundation of another war.’
‘Unless we would choose to be obliged to keep great bodies of troops in
America, in full peace, we can never leave the
French any footing in
Canada.’
‘Not
Senegal and
Goree, nor even Guadaloupe, ought to be insisted upon as a condition of peace, provided
Canada be left to us.’
Such seemed ‘the infinite consequence of
North America,’ which, by its increasing inhabitants, would consume British manufactures; by its trade, employ innumerable British ships; by its provisions, support the sugar islands; by its products, fit out the whole navy of
England.
Peace, too, was to be desired in behalf of
England's ally, the only Protestant sovereign in
Germany
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who could preserve the privileges of his religion
from being trampled under foot.
‘How calmly,’ said
Bath, ‘the
King of
Prussia possesses himself under distress!
how ably he can extricate himself!’
having ‘amazing resources in his own unbounded genius.’
‘The warm support of the Protestant nation’ of
Great Britain must be called forth, or ‘the war begun to wrest
Silesia from him’ would, ‘in the end, be found to be a war’ to ‘overturn the liberties and religion of
Germany.’
Peace was, moreover, to be solicited from love to political freedom.
The increase of the navy, army, and public debt, and the consequent influence of the crown, was ‘much too great for the independency of the constitution.’
6
The generous and wise sentiments of the
Earl of
Bath were acceptable to the people of
England.
But there were not wanting a reflecting few who doubted.
Foremost among them,
William Burke,
7 the kinsman and friend, and often the associate, of
Edmund Burke, found arguments for retaining Guadaloupe in the opportunity it would afford of profitable investment, the richness of the soil, the number of its slaves, the absence of all rivalry between
England and a tropical island.
Besides, he added, to alarm his countrymen, ‘if the people of our colonies find no check from
Canada, they will extend themselves almost
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without bound into the inland parts.
They will
increase infinitely from all causes.
What the consequence will be, to have a numerous, hardy, independent people, possessed of a strong country, communicating little or not at all with
England, I leave to your own reflections.’
‘By eagerly grasping at extensive territory, we may run the risk, and in no very distant period, of losing what we now possess.
A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is not always the worst of neighbors.
So that, far from sacrificing Guadaloupe to
Canada, perhaps, if we might have
Canada without any sacrifice at all, we ought not to desire it. There should be a balance of power in
America.’
And the writer revealed his connections by advising, that, as the war had been ‘an American war,’ ‘Lord Halifax,’ one of the ‘few’ whom ‘inclinations, studies, opportunities, and talents had made perfectly masters of the state and interests of the colonies,’ should be appointed to negotiate peace.
Private letters
8 from Guadaloupe gave warning that a country of such vast resources, and so distant as
North America, could never remain long subject to Britain.
The acquisition of
Canada would strengthen
America to revolt.
‘One can foresee these events clearly,’ said the unnamed writer; ‘it is no gift of prophecy.
It is a natural and unavoidable consequence, and must appear so to every man whose head is not too much affected with popular madness or political enthusiasm.
The islands, from their weakness, can never revolt; but, if we acquire all
Canada, we shall soon find
North America itself
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too powerful and too populous to be governed by us
at a distance.’
If
Canada were annexed, ‘the
Americans,’ it was objected in conversation, ‘would be at leisure to manufacture for themselves, and throw off their dependence on the mother country.’
9
On the other side,
Benjamin Franklin, having many in
England and all reflecting men in his native land for his hearers, replying to
Burke, defended the annexation of
Canada as the only mode of securing
America.
The
Indians, from the necessity of commerce, would cease to massacre the planters, and cherish perpetual peace.
There would be no vast inland frontier to be defended against
France, at an incalculable expense.
The number of British subjects would, indeed, increase more rapidly than if the mountains should remain their barrier; but they would be more diffused, and their employment in agriculture would free
England from the fear of American manufactures.
‘With
Canada in our possession,’ he remarked, ‘our people in
America will increase amazingly.
I know that their common rate of increase is doubling their numbers every twenty-five years, by natural generation only, exclusive of the accession of foreigners.
This increase continuing would, in a century more, make the
British subjects on that side the water more numerous than they now are on this.’
Should the ministry surrender their own judgment to the fears of others, it would ‘prevent the assuring to the
British name and nation a stability and permanency that no man acquainted with history durst have
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hoped for, till our American possessions opened the
pleasing prospect.’
To the objection, that
England could supply only the seacoast, that the inhabitants of the interior must manufacture for themselves,
Franklin evoked from futurity the splendid vision of wide navigation on the great rivers and inland seas of
America.
Even the poor
Indian on
Lake Superior was already able to pay for wares furnished from French and English factories; and would not industrious farmers, hereafter settled in those countries, be better able to pay for what should be brought them?
‘The trade to the
West India Islands,’ he continued, ‘is undoubtedly a valuable one; but it has long been at a stand.
The trade to our northern colonies is not only greater, but yearly increasing with the increase of people; and even in a greater proportion, as the people increase in wealth.
That their growth may render them dangerous I have not the least conception.
We have already fourteen separate governments on the maritime coast of the continent; and shall probably have as many more behind them on the inland side.
Their jealousy of each other is so great, they have never been able to effect a union among themselves, nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them.
If they could not agree to unite for their defence against the
French and
Indians, who were perpetually harassing their settlements, burning their villages, and murdering their people, is there any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which they all love much more than they love one another?
Such a union is impossible, without the most
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grievous tyranny and oppression.
People who have
property in a country, which they may lose, and privileges which they may endanger, are generally disposed to be quiet, and even to bear much, rather than hazard all. While the government is mild and just, while important civil and religious rights are secure, such subjects will be dutiful and obedient.
The waves do not rise, but when the winds blow.
’
Thus
Franklin offered the great advice which sprung from his love of English freedom and his truly American heart.
Appealing also to the men of letters, he communed with
David Hume on the jealousy of trade; and shared the more agreeable system of economy that promised to the world freedom of commerce, a brotherhood of the nations, and mutual benefits from mutual prosperity.
He rejoiced that the great master of English historic style,—who by his natural character and deliberate opinion was at heart a republican,
10—loved to promote by his writings that common good of mankind, which the
American, inventing a new form of expression, called “the interest of humanity;”
Franklin to Hume, 27 Sept, 1760.
Writings, VIII. 210. and he summoned before the mind of the Scottish philosopher that audience of innumerable millions which a century or two would prepare in
America for all who should use English well.
England cheerfully and proudly accepted the counsels which his magnanimity inspired.
Promising herself wealth from colonial trade, she was also occupied by the thought of filling the wilderness, instructing it with the products of her intelligence, and blessing it with free institutions.
Homer sang from
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isle to isle; the bards of
England would find ‘hear-
ers in every zone,’ and in the admiration of genius continent respond to continent.
Pitt would not weigh the
West India islands against half a hemisphere; he desired to retain them both; but being overruled in the cabinet he held fast to
Canada.
The liberties of the
English in
America were his delight; he made it his glory to extend the boundaries throughout which they were to be enjoyed; and yet, at that very time the Board of Trade retained the patronage and internal administration of the colonies, and were persuaded more than ever of the necessity of radical changes in the government in favor of the central authority.
While they waited for peace as the proper season for their interference,
Thomas Pownall, the
Governor of
Massachusetts, a statesman who had generous feelings, but no logic, flashes of sagacity, but no clear comprehension, who from inclination associated with liberal men, even while he framed plans for strengthening the prerogative, affirmed, and many times reiterated, that the independence of
America was certain, and near at hand.
‘Not for centuries,’ replied
Hutchinson, who knew the strong affection of
New England for the home of its fathers.
11
But the
Lords of Trade shared the foreboding.
In every province, the people, from design, or from their nature and position, seemed gradually confirming their sway.
Virginia, once ‘so orderly,’ had assumed the right of equitably adjusting the emoluments secured by law to the
Church.
In 1759,
Sherlock,
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then
Bishop of
London, had confided his griefs to the
Board of Trade, at ‘the great change in the temper of the people of
Virginia.’
‘It is surely high time,’ said he, ‘to look about us and consider of the several steps lately taken to the diminution of the prerogative of the crown.
The rights of the clergy and the authority of the king must stand or fall together.’
‘
Connecticut,’ wrote a royalist Churchman, in July, 1760, to Seeker, the
Archbishop of
Canterbury, ‘
Connecticut is little more than a mere democracy; most of them upon a level, and each man thinking himself an able divine and politician;’ and to make them ‘a good sort of people,’ he urged upon Halifax and
Pitt, that ‘the
Church should be supported,’ ‘and the charters of that colony, and of its eastward neighbors, be demolished.’
‘The present republican form of those governments was indeed pernicious.
The people were rampant in their high notions of liberty, and thence perpetually running into intrigue and faction;’ and he advocated an act of parliament establishing one model for all
America.
As ‘a principle of union,’ a viceroy, or lord-lieutenant, was to be appointed, with a council of two from each province, like the Amphictyons of
Greece, to consult for union, stability, and the good of the whole; and ‘there being the strongest connection between fearing God and honoring the king,’ ‘prayer’ was made for ‘bishops, at least two or three.’
12 In the winter after the taking of
Quebec, the rumor got abroad of the fixed design in
England to remodel the provinces.
13 Many officers of the
British
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army expressed the opinion openly, that
America should be compelled to yield a revenue at the disposition of the crown.
Some of them, at New York, suggested such a requisition of quitrents, as would be virtually a general land-tax, by act of parliament.
‘While I can wield this weapon,’ cried
Livingston, the large landholder, grasping his sword, ‘
England shall never get it but with my heart's blood.’
14 In the Assembly at New York, which had been chosen in the previous year, the popular party was strengthened by those who battled with Episcopacy, and the Livingstons, descendants of Scottish Presbyterians, were recognised as its leaders.
Of these were Philip, the popular alderman, a merchant of New York, and William, who represented his brother's manor, a scholar, and an able lawyer, the incorruptible advocate of civil and religious liberty, in manners plain, by his nature republican.
Nor may
Robert R. Livingston, of Duchess County, be forgotten,—an only son, heir to very large estates, a man of spirit and honor, keenly sensitive to right, faultless as a son, a son-in-law, a husband, possessing a gentleness of nature and a candor that ever endeared him to the friends of freedom.
In the opinion of
Cadwallader Colden, the president of the Council,
15 ‘the democratical or popular part’ of the
American constitution ‘was too strong for the other parts, and in time might swallow them both up, and endanger the dependence of the plantations
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on the crown of
Great Britain.’
His reme-
dies were, ‘a perpetual revenue,’ fixed salaries, and ‘an hereditary council of privileged landholders, in imitation of the
Lords of parliament.’
At the same time, he warned against the danger of applying a standing revenue to favorites, or bestowing beneficial employments on strangers alone, to the great discouragement of the people of the plantations.
Influenced by a most ‘favorable opinion’ of
Colden's ‘zeal for the rights of the crown,’ Lord Halifax conferred on him the vacant post of lieutenantgov-ernor of New York.
16
In the neighboring province of
New Jersey,
Francis Bernard, as its governor, a royalist, selected for office by Halifax, had, from 1758, the time of his arrival in
America, been brooding over the plans for enlarging royal power which he afterwards reduced to form.
But
Pennsylvania, of all the colonies, led the van of what the royalists called ‘Democracy.’
Its Assembly succeeded in obtaining its governor's assent to their favorite assessment bill, by which the estates of the proprietaries were subjected to taxation.
They revived and continued for sixteen years their excise, which was collected by officers of their own appointment; and they kept its ‘very considerable’ proceeds solely and entirely at their own disposal.
‘This act alone,’ it was thought, ‘must, in effect, vest them with almost all the power in that government.’
Still, these measures, they said, ‘did not yet sufficiently secure their constitution;’ and by other bills they enlarged popular power, taking from
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the governor all influence over the judiciary, by
making good behavior its tenure of office.
Maryland repeated the same contests, and adopted the same policy.
Already the negative had been wrested from the Council of
Pennsylvania, and from the proprietaries themselves.
The latter, therefore, in March, 1760, appealed to the king against seventeen acts that had been passed in 1758 and 1759, ‘as equally affecting the royal prerogative, their chartered immunities, and their rights as men.’
When, in May, 1760,
Franklin appeared with able counsel to defend the liberties of his adopted home before the Board of Trade, he was encountered by
Pratt, the
attorney-general, and
Charles Yorke, the son of Lord Hardwicke, then the
solicitor-general, who appeared for the prerogative and the proprietaries.
Of the acts complained of, it was held that some ‘were unjust to the private fortunes of the Penns,’ and all, by their dangerous encroachments, ‘fatal to the constitution in a public consideration.’
In behalf of the people it was pleaded, that the consent of the governor, who was the deputy of the proprietaries, included the consent of his principals.
To this it was replied, that his consent was fraudulent, for the amount of his emoluments had depended on his compliance; that it was subversive of the constitution for the Assembly first to take to themselves the supervision of the treasure, and then to employ it to corrupt the governor.
Even the liberal
Pratt, as well as
Yorke, ‘said much of the intention to establish a democracy, in place of his Majesty's government,’ and urged upon ‘the proprietaries their duty of resistance.’
The Lords of Trade found that in
Pennsylvania, as in every other colony,
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‘the delegates far exceeded the largest claims of the
House of Commons, not only by raising the money, but by investing themselves with the sole application of it, and usurping by this means the most valuable prerogative of the executive power.’
The Board, therefore, in June, assured the cabinet ministers, that ‘experience had shown how vain it was to negotiate away his Majesty's authority, since every new concession became a foundation for some new demand, and that of some new dispute;’ and they recommended that ‘the constitution should be brought back to its proper principles, to restore to the crown, in the person of the proprietaries, its just prerogative, to check the growing influence of assemblies, by distinguishing, what they are perpetually confounding, the executive from the legislative power.’
When, in July, the subject was discussed before the Privy Council, Lord Mansfield made the extraordinary motion, ‘that the attorney and solicitor general be instructed to report their opinion whether his Majesty could not disapprove of parts of an act and confirm other parts of it.’
17 But so violent an attempt to extend the king's prerogative, at the expense of the people of the colonies and the proprietaries, met with no favor.
At last, of the seventeen acts objected to, the six which encroached most on the executive power were negatived by the king; but by the influence of Lord Mansfield, and against the advice of the Board of Trade, the assessment bill, which taxed the estates of the proprietaries, was made the subject of an informal capitulation between them and the agent of the people
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of
Pennsylvania, and was included among those
that were confirmed.
There were two men in
England whose interest in these transactions was especially memorable:
Pitt, the
secretary of state for
America, and
Edmund Burke, a man of letters, at that time in the service of
William Gerard Hamilton, the colleague of Lord Halifax.
Burke shared the opinions of the Board of Trade, that all the offensive acts of
Pennsylvania should be rejected, and censured with severity the temporizing facility of Lord Mansfield as a feeble and unmanly surrender of just authority.
18 The time was near at hand when the young
Irishman's opinions upon the extent of British authority over
America would become of moment.
Great efforts were made to win the immediate interposition of
William Pitt, to appall the colonies by his censure, or to mould them by British legislation.
After diligent and long-continued inquiry, I cannot find that he ever consented to menace any restriction on the freedom of
[
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the people in the colonies, or even so much as ex-
pressed an opinion that they were more in fault than the champions of prerogative.
So little did he interest himself in the strifes of
Pennsylvania, that, during his whole ministry,
Franklin was never once admitted to his presence.
Every one of his letters which I have seen—and I think I have seen every considerable one to every colony—is marked by liberality and respect for American rights; and the governor of
Maryland, who desired taxation by parliament, and had appealed to the secretary, ‘in hopes that measures would have been taken to end the dispute’ between the officers of the crown and the Assembly, was left to complain ‘that his Majesty's ministers had not as yet interfered,’ that
Pitt would ‘only blame both houses for their failure to make appropriations.’
The threat of interference, on the close of the war, was incessant from
Halifax and the Board of Trade; I can trace no such purpose to
Pitt.
19
Yet a circular from the secretary, who was informed by
Amherst that the
French islands were supplied during the war with provisions from
America, was connected with the first strong expressions of discontent in
New England.
American merchants
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were incited, by the
French commercial regulations, to
engage in the carrying-trade of the
French sugar, islands; and they gained by its immense profits.
This trade was protected by flags of truce, which were granted by the colonial governors.
‘For each flag,’ wrote
Horatio Sharpe, who longed to share in the spoils, ‘for each flag, my neighbor,
Governor Denny, receives a handsome douceur, and I have been told that
Governor Bernard in particular has also done business in the same way.’
20 ‘I,’ said
Fauquier, of
Virginia, ‘have never been prevailed on to grant one; though I have been tempted by large offers, and pitiful stories of relations lying in French dungeons for want of such flags.’
21 In vehement and imperative words,
Pitt rebuked the practice; not with a view permanently to restrain the trade of the continent with the foreign islands, but only in time of war to distress the enemy by famine.
In August, the same month in which this impassioned interdict was issued,
Francis Bernard, whom the Board of Trade favored as the most willing friend to the English Church and to British authority, was removed from the government of
New Jersey to that of
Massachusetts.
But the distrust that was never to be removed, had already planted itself very deeply in the province.
‘These
English,’ men said to one another, ‘will overturn every thing.
We must resist them; and that by force.’
And they reasoned together on the necessity of a general attention to the militia, to their exercises and discipline; for they
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repeated, ‘we must resist in arms.’
22 In September of
that year,
Bernard manifested the purpose of his appointment, by informing the legislature of Massachusetts ‘that they derived blessings from their subjection to
Great Britain.’
Subjection to
Great Britain was a new doctrine in
New England; whose people professed loyalty to the king, but shunned a new master in the collective people of
England.
The Council, in its reply, owned only a beneficial ‘relation to
Great Britain;’ the House of Representatives spoke vaguely of ‘the connection between the mother country and the provinces, on the principles of filial obedience, protection, and justice.’
The colonists had been promised, after the conquest of
Canada, that they should ‘sit quietly under their own vines and fig-trees, with none to make them afraid;’ and already they began to fear aggressions on their freedom.
To check illicit trade, the officers of the customs had even demanded of the Supreme Court general writs of assistance; but the writs had been withheld, because
Stephen Sewall, the
chief justice of the province, a man of great integrity, respected and beloved by the people, doubted their legality.
In September,
Sewall died, to the universal sorrow of the province; and the character of his successor would control the decision of the court on the legality of writs of assistance, involving the whole subject of enforcing the
British Acts of Trade; by the utmost exertion of arbitrary and irresponsible discretion; as well as the degree of political support which the judiciary would grant to the intended new system of administration.
Public opinion selected for the vacancy
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James Otis, of
Barnstable, a good lawyer, a member
of the Council, and acceptable to the community.
Besides, former governors had promised him a seat on the bench at the first vacancy.
23 But
Bernard appointed
Thomas Hutchinson, originally a merchant by profession, subservient in his politics, already lieutenant governor, councillor, and judge of probate.
A burst of indignation broke from the colony at this union of such high executive, legislative, and judicial functions in one person, who was not bred to the law, and was expected to interpret it for the benefit of the prerogative.
Oxenbridge Thacher, a lawyer of great merit, a man of sagacity and patriotism, respected for learning, ability, purity of life, and moderation, discerned the dangerous character of
Hutchinson's ambition, and from this time denounced him openly and always; while
James Otis, the younger, offended as a son and a patriot, resigned the office of advocate-general, and by his eloquence in opposition to the royalists, set the province in a flame.
But the new
chief justice received the iterated application for writs of assistance, and delayed the decision of the court only till he could write to
England.
There the Board of Trade had matured its system.
They agreed with what
Dobbs had written from
North Carolina, that ‘it was not prudent, when unusual supplies were asked, to litigate any point with the factious assemblies; but upon an approaching peace, it would be proper to insist on the king's prerogative.’
‘Lord Halifax,’ said Seeker of that nobleman, about the time of his forfeiting an advantageous
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380]
marriage by a licentious connection with an
opera girl, ‘Lord Halifax is earnest for bishops in
America,’ and he hoped for success in that ‘great point, when it should please God to bless them with a peace.’
The opinions of
Ellis, the governor of
Georgia, who had represented the want of ‘a small military force’ to keep the Assembly from encroachments; of
Lyttleton, who, from
South Carolina, had sent word that the root of all the difficulties of the king's servants lay ‘in having no standing revenue,’ were kept in mind.
‘It has been hinted to me,’ said the secretary of
Maryland, ‘that, at the peace, acts of parliament will be moved for amendment of government and a standing force in
America, and that the colonies, for whose protection the force will be established, must bear at least the greatest share of charge.
This,’ wrote
Calvert, in January, 1760,
24 ‘will occasion a tax;’ and he made preparations to give the Board of Trade his answer to their propositions on the safest modes of raising a revenue in
America by act of parliament.
‘For all what you
Americans say of your loyalty,’ observed
Pratt, the
attorney-general, better known in
America as Lord Camden, to
Franklin, ‘and notwithstanding your boasted affection, you will one day set up for independence.’
‘No such idea,’ replied
Franklin, sincerely, ‘is entertained by the
Americans, or ever will be, unless you grossly abuse them.’
‘Very true,’ rejoined
Pratt; ‘that I see will happen, and will produce the event.’
25
Peace with foreign states was to bring for
America an alteration of charters, a new system of administration,
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a standing army, and for the support of that
army a grant of an American revenue by a British parliament.
The decision was settled, after eleven years reflection and experience, by Halifax and his associates at the Board of Trade, and for its execution needed only a prime minister and a resolute monarch to lend it countenance.
In the midst of these schemes, surrounded by victory, the aged
George the Second died suddenly of apoplexy; and on the morning of the twenty-fifth day of October, 1760, his grandson, the pupil of Leicester House, then but twenty-two years of age, while riding with the
Earl of
Bute, was overtaken by a secret message that he was king.
